One of the great craftsmen of modern poetry in English, Dylan Thomas harnesses the very music of language. The amazing memorability of the poems – the unforgettable phrase, the singing line – comes partly from the Welshness of the craft. But it also comes from the range of the great natural forces that the poems deal with, and which determine all our lives. From the miracle of birth itself, through the speed of childhood, the slow toils of adolescence and the responsibilities of a wartime adult world, to the sadness of decline, the inevitable shape of life is given voice – and celebrated. 'The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it.' Dylan Thomas